Arabs agree Syria opposition contacts, peace force

[1]

The Arab League said it agreed on Sunday to open contacts with Syria's opposition and to ask the United Nations to form a joint peacekeeping force to the unrest-swept nation in moves swiftly rejected by Syria.

Arab diplomats "will open channels of communication with the Syrian opposition and offer full political and financial support, urging (the opposition) to unify its ranks," it said in a statement obtained by the media.

They would also "ask the UN Security Council to issue a decision on the formation of a joint UN-Arab peacekeeping force to oversee the implementation of a ceasefire," it said.

After marathon talks in Cairo, the 22-member bloc also announced it had formally ended its own observer mission to Syria, which was suspended last month because of an upsurge in violence.

Only Algeria and Lebanon expressed reservations against the resolution, an Arab League official said.

Syria rejects decisions

Syria's ambassador to Cairo ‘categorically’ rejected the Arab League moves.

"The Syrian Arab Republic categorically rejects the decisions of the Arab League," which "reflects the hysteria of these governments" after failing to get foreign intervention at the UN Security Council, Yusef Ahmed said in a statement.

On the ground, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that 14 people were killed in a relentless assault by forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on the central protest city of Homs.

All but one of them died in Baba Amr, a rebel stronghold in the city which armed forces have targeted for more than a week, killing at least 500 people, according to activists.

‘No bread’

It also reported fierce clashes on the northern edge of nearby Rastan, where a woman was killed when a rocket hit her home. Elsewhere, snipers shot dead a child in Daraa, cradle of the 11-month uprising against Assad's regime.

"Tank and mortar fire intensified on Sunday afternoon," the Observatory's Rami Abdel Rahman told the media, adding the humanitarian situation was worsening. "There is a shortage of bread in some areas."

The Local Coordination Committees, an activist network on the ground, provided a link to a YouTube video showing crowds gathered outside the only bakery in one part of Homs.

As the military pressed its onslaught on Homs, refugees who fled to Lebanon from the flashpoint city recounted the horrors they had witnessed.

10-yr-old refuses to eat

"The army of Bashar al-Assad destroyed our homes," one of them, Abu Ibrahim, told the media. "Before, we were bombarded by mortars or rocket-propelled grenades, but now they are using tanks and helicopters."

Ibrahim said that his 10-year-old daughter Nada has refused to eat since seeing dead bodies littering the streets of the besieged city.

The Syrian Arab Red Crescent and International Committee of the Red Cross said their "volunteers are distributing food, medical supplies, blankets, and hygiene consumables to thousands of people" in Homs.

"We are greatly concerned about the consequences of the unrest from a humanitarian viewpoint and about the current deterioration of the situation," said the ICRC's Marianne Gasser.